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Summary
Summary
Multiple award-winning, New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author Peter Robinson returns with Children of the Revolution, a superb tale of mystery and murder that takes acclaimed British Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks back to the early 1970s--a turbulent time of politics, change, and radical student activism.
The body of a disgraced college lecturer is found on an abandoned railway line. In the four years since his dismissal for sexual misconduct, he'd been living like a hermit. So where did he get the 5,000 pounds found in his pocket?
Leading the investigation, Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks begins to suspect that the victim's past may be connected to his death. Forty years ago the dead man attended a university that was a hotbed of militant protest and divisive, bitter politics. And as the seasoned detective well knows, some grudges are never forgotten--or forgiven.
Just as he's about to break the case open, his superior warns him to back off. Yet Banks isn't about to stop, even if it means risking his career. He's certain there's more to the mystery than meets the eye . . . and more skeletons to uncover before the case can finally be closed.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In Edgar-finalist Robinson's absorbing 21st novel featuring Det. Chief Insp. Alan Banks (after 2013's Watching the Dark), Gavin Miller lives in poverty-stricken isolation after allegations of sexual misconduct cost him his job as a college lecturer. Yet when his battered body is found near a disused Yorkshire railway track, he has $5,000 in his pocket. Believing the money came from drug sales or blackmail, Banks and his team investigate both the recent misconduct charges and Miller's college days decades earlier. Banks quickly uncovers a link between the victim and Lady Veronica Chalmers, once a Marxist rebel and now a successful romance novelist and aunt to the probable next home secretary. Robinson excels at connecting his detectives' personal stories to the investigation, endowing familiar characters with fresh nuance and depth. Impeccable pacing fleshes out Miller's tragic life and unravels the killer's motive. Agent: Dominick Abel, Dominick Abel Literary Agency. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Robinson's long-running and best-selling Inspector Banks series, now spanning more than 20 novels, has won a clutch of awards, including France's Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere and Sweden's Martin Beck awards, along with nominations for Edgar and Agatha awards. Detective Chief Inspector Banks, the artsy and melancholic Yorkshire detective, and his snarky sidekick, Detective Inspector Annie Cabbot, are consistently fun to watch, whether you just drop in on this series or have seen the shifts in their relationship from the beginning. Robinson writes police procedurals in which the latest forensic science enhances, while still taking a back seat to, the basic arts of detection; Banks is clearly on the side of old-fashioned discovery of motive and opportunity, and his questioning of suspects is wonderful to witness. This time the body of a former university lecturer is found on the tracks of an abandoned railroad track in North Yorkshire. The man has been living hand to mouth since his dismissal on charges of sexual misconduct several years before. The scene reads as a suicide, except to Banks, who suspects that the 5,000 pounds left in the man's pocket and his recent reaching out to militant college contacts from the 1970s may point to a more complicated story. As usual with a Banks novel, the chief inspector's frictions with higher-ups are nearly as gripping as the unraveling of the case itself. First-rate procedural and character study. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: An A-list staple, Robinson's Inspector Banks series has a devoted following, especially in libraries, and this is one of the series' highlights.--Fletcher, Connie Copyright 2014 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
WHENEVER SOME FRESH instance of blatant corruption or rank depravity comes to light in Italy (toxic waste in agricultural Campania, political scandal in Lombardia, a proposal to build an ugly skyscraper in Mestre), Commissario Guido Brunetti, the principled protagonist of Donna Leon's uplifting Venetian mysteries, looks to his family and to the wise philosophers of ancient Rome to restore his faith in humanity. Leon tends to console herself by writing a new book. BY ITS COVER (Atlantic Monthly, $26), which finds the author in a fury over vandalism and theft in national libraries, museums and churches, appears to have been inspired by the looting of Naples's Girolamini Library by its director, a systematic sacking of thousands of rare books that came to light in 2012. ("It would make a stone weep," according to one of Brunetti's colleagues.) Although the criminal damage done at the venerable Biblioteca Merula is on a far more modest scale, it's no less heartbreaking to the library director, as well as to the commissario. It's also a great mystery. How was the damage done when the only patrons of this obscure library are innocuous scholars like Joseph Nickerson, an American academic researching maritime and Mediterranean trade history, and an ex-priest affectionately known as Tertullian for his obsessive study of the writings of the Church Fathers? The melancholy tone of the storytelling suits the narrative, especially when the ex-priest is found savagely murdered. Crimes against the elderly always distress the compassionate Brunetti, but in this extraordinary case even a murderer touches his heart. What angers him beyond endurance are the corrupt public officials, his own superiors in the police department among them, who aid and abet the crooks who make their fortunes by sacrificing their country's cultural heritage. But the scent of spring in the air draws Brunetti out of his gloomy thoughts and into the life of the city. Walking is a joy, and an official interview is just as easily conducted away from the office, in the "elegant dilapidation" of the Caffe Florian. But even a sip of spring can be poisoned by the sight of a gigantic cruise ship lumbering up the Grand Canal. TIME IS KIND to a rebel who dies young - everybody else is doomed to grow up and lose his ideals. That's the bummer memo Peter Robinson posts in CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION (Morrow, $25.99), a sobering mystery featuring his Yorkshire detective, Chief Inspector Alan Banks. A murder investigation always begins with the victim, but all we know about Gavin Miller, an impoverished recluse who came to a violent end on a derelict railway line, is that this 59-year-old man had a comprehensive collection of arty foreign films and enough Grateful Dead albums to qualify as a Dead Head. Always a graceful stylist, Robinson is also known for his meticulous procedural methods. So it takes diligent police work to turn up the information that Miller had been dismissed from a teaching position, charged with "sexual indiscretion," and more digging to establish that he was probably set up. But the origins of this sad, twisted tale ultimately reach back to the late '60s and '70s, when everyone wanted to be a rebel and no one considered the cost. THRILLER WRITERS DO love their gimmicks, and Owen Laukkanen has come up with a sickeningly original one. For reasons that don't bear close scrutiny, in his novels ordinary people with no criminal footprint take on new lives as bank robbers and kidnappers. That high concept darkens considerably in KILL FEE (Putnam, $26.95) when a heartless predator recruits shellshocked young vets and programs them to become killing machines. According to this creep's twisted logic, he's "simply a service provider filling a vacuum in the market" by catering to clients on his website, Killswitch. Laukkanen's fast-paced, no-frills style is brisk, blunt and fueled entirely by adrenaline, the better to keep us from thinking too hard. But no authorial shenanigans can disguise the schematic nature of his two crime-stoppers, a hot-wired female F.B.I. agent based in Minneapolis and a laidback male cop from St. Paul. Stunt writing makes her the hard-nosed tough guy and gives him the squeamish morality issues. But, truth to tell, those human zombies have far more personality than either of them. SOME PEOPLE READ poetry at bedtime. Others prefer seed catalogs. May I suggest instead Joyce Carol Oates's new story collection, HIGH CRIME AREA (Mysterious, $23)? These "tales of darkness and dread" won't put you to sleep, but they'll give you more interesting nightmares. Here's one, set in Detroit in 1967, about a young white teacher who's so terrified of the black male students in her evening composition class that she carries a gun. ("I am very ashamed of my fear," she admits.) Here's another, about an acclaimed literary figure who learns too late that he has cause to fear the women he habitually humiliates. And one more: about a 13-year-old girl trying to keep her mother from killing her baby brother. In a way, every story is a character study, not necessarily well rounded, but sure to focus a basilisk eye on the weak spot that reveals our own ugly impulses and makes us defenseless against the terrors of the night. . . . Sweet dreams.
Library Journal Review
Robinson's latest Inspector Banks mystery (after Watching the Dark) features the ever-intriguing detective investigating the death of a former college instructor. The body is discovered on railway tracks underneath a bridge, and the victim has a large amount of money still in his pocket. The circumstances suggest blackmail to Banks, who proceeds to dig into the dead man's past for clues. Robinson's sympathetic portrayal of the victim, Gavin Miller, depicts a man without family and with few friends, whose welfare is treated with casual disregard even by those closest to him. Banks instinctively senses that more information about Miller's life and character will lead the police to the killer. Intertwined with the story are more decisions and personal issues for the popular DI; he is considering a promotion that, if accepted, will make changes to his future plans. Unfortunately, his falling once again for a much younger woman will irritate some readers, as Banks's repeated affairs with various young women erode his appeal. VERDICT Fans of mystery and suspense will enjoy this excellent story from an award-winning author. [See Prepub Alert, 10/20/13.]-Linda Oliver, MLIS, Colorado Springs (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.